The Boston Chapters: Swimming with the Big Fishes

14th June 2008

Shivering out on the top deck as the cold sea breeze blew across my face. The waves getting rougher was a sign that we were probably already out in the ocean and at the mercy of her relentless tides. I stared out into a vast nothingness, waiting in anticipation of spotting something, anything, between the endless sky and the sea.

Absolute Nothingness

The biting sea breeze hit my face again as I stared down the horizon, bringing the process of how the weather gradually escalated into an almost unbearable affair into memory.

Boarding the Voyager III, the sunset cruise showed signs of shaping up to be less sunset and more cruise as the sun hid shyly behind the cover of grey clouds. Starting to feel a premonition of the possible repercussions of my lazy-reluctance to carry my jacket with me, we boarded the ship and climbed to the top deck for the best possible view.

The Voyager III, or so they say

Departing from the harbour, the wind on my face grew from a gentle caress into a forceful slap, as we moved further and further away from the harbour. The Boston skyline was one that was somewhat sparse, but with enough distinctions to give it its unique flavour. But this gradually diluted into an indistinguishable blur on the horizon as the ship moved further and further away from the local shores.

Always the Visionary

The boat bypassed a series of islands collective known as the Boston Harbor Islands, one of the most recently named Nature Parks in America. And it was for good reason, as we saw a cocktail of Penguins-on-the-rocks as we cruised in the direction of the Boston Lighthouse, one of the more iconic lighthouses this side of the country.

Penguins-on-the-Rocks

Picking up more speed as we hit the higher waters, the wind also grew more and more threatening, as mops of hair flew backwards and futile attempts were made in doing some mad-hopping in hope of generating enough heat in the body to counteract the intense shivering.

Mass Shivering

Shivering out on the top deck as the cold sea breeze blew across my face. The waves getting rougher was a sign that we were probably already out in the ocean and at the mercy of her relentless tides. I stared out into a vast nothingness, waiting in anticipation of spotting something, anything, between the endless sky and the sea.

Suddenly a female voice came over the ship's speaker system, "Folks, if you look towards your 10 o'clock, we should be expecting to see some..." as the crowded almost instanteously gravitated towards the left side of the boat, waiting with bated breath.

Suddenly, a spout of water was seen shooting out near the surface of the ocean some distance from the boat, as fingers started pointing towards that direction. And then for a while, there was nothingness again.

The seconds of silence felt like forever as everyone waited in further anticipation...

Splashing of the waves were seen a little right of where the spout of water was spotted, and then... a large black tail came out of the water, performing what seemed to be a wave-like gesture towards us. The crowd across 3 decks of the boat cheered in a collective "Woo" as the gesture was performed over and over again over a span of time. I drew out my camera with my wildly shivering hands in an attempt to at least try to capture a slice of the magic.

Hit with my Best Shot

"Over there in front of the boat is a Humpback Whale folks, performing some action with its tail known as Breaching. Scientists have no idea why the whales do this, but one theory is that it acts as a form of communication with other whales," the voice over the system explained, as we continued to watch in wide-eyed wonder.

And no sooner after the word "communication" did another black mass jump out of the water right in front of us to the left of the ship at a relatively high speed, much to the jaw-dropping amazement of most of the people on the boat.

"On the left of the boat, at your 9 o'clock, is another humpback whale," the voice explained in a professionally calm tone. "We have what appears to be a mother-calf pairing folks," as it went on to explain further about the occurrence of such pairings.

I was utterly blown away despite the shivering cold, as it had probably just occurred to me how near I actually was to these gentle giants of the sea. And it seemed to only have just sunken in that there was probably no other way in which one would be able to actually see whales of any form other than out in the deep blue wild, since whales aren't exactly aquarium-friendly.

Even though it was mostly fins and tails that were visible, there was just something rather amazing about being in the presence of these deep blue giants and have them continuously waving out at us with their fins and their tails; or at least the illusion of thinking that they were acknowledging us, at the very least.

The amazement failed to cease as I watched on, seeing the fins and tails appearing out of the water in brief waves at a time and disappearing from sight just as quickly. The silence between the magic moments were spent squinting out into the vast ocean, hoping to catch some sort of splash or movement in a distance.

It was almost at the end of the viewing session that we were joined by another whale, putting the total up to 3 humpback whales. While unfortunate voyages have been said to be totally devoid of even a single sighting, I guess that Lady Luck was probably smiling on us by giving us threefold of what we expected; then again, maybe she was just smiling in amusement to our suffering and shivering faces just to catch sight of a few "big fishes."

"It's almost time to head back, folks. We will make one last sighting of the whales before we head back to shore," the voice boomed out to the now less-crowded deck. It seemed that many of the viewers, inclusive of most of my team, had given in to the bitterness of the cold, and succumbed to the temptations of the warmer cabin down below.

Michelle and I were the last man and woman standing as we stayed on deck for the best view possible.

"Haha, it's kinda ironic don't you think? That we are paying 50 bucks to stand out here in the cold to suffer, when we could be comfortably seated in the warm cabin" I turned around and said to her.

She turned around to look at me.

"But there is just something about fully experiencing something, at least to me. Like for me, standing out in the cold is part and parcel of the entire experience of this Whale Watching thing, and for me, I would rather 'Bite the Bullet' if it meant fully experiencing something," I said.

She agreed whole-heartedly.

"And you know what the funniest thing is? The funniest thing is that the last 2 people standing in the group are the 2 who didn't bring any jackets," I said laughingly, as I lowered my camera ready for the ship to turn back to shore.

Impossibly more untimely, one of the whales leaped out of the water in what seemed to be a backflip-like gesture, giving us full view of its front-side and its belly, as if to reward us for our efforts.

I raised my camera in an attempt to catch that breath-taking moment on film, but being the tease that Lady Luck is known to be, by then, the whale was already nowhere to be seen.

Last Man (and Woman) Standing